Wednesday, April 1, 2020

COVID19 – How Anti-Intellectual Christians Ruin Things for the Rest of Us

Thank you to Suzanne at No Longer Quivering for posting this letter to government officials who may be in a good position to reach the Rodrigues Family with some information that may finally curtail their life-endangering recklessness as our communities and our nation respond to the COVID Pandemic.

The family hobnobs with Bill Gothard's inner circle of Advanced Training Institute homeschooling families including the Duggar Family (TLC Cable Reality TV Personalities). Good stewardship for Christians should begin with love for others and concern for them by first showing them that they have inherent worth. They have equal value to all others regardless of their beliefs and religion, and their physical bodies are just as important as their individual souls. They are precious, their phsycial bodies are precious, and their part in society has as much value to society as that of any Christian – right here in the here and now.

Please note the LINK LIST below (following the open letter) for further reading.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

An Open Letter to the Local Government in Wayne County, OH and the Borough of Chambersburg, PA

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Greetings,

In the interests of Public Health, could an appropriate representative of the Wayne County Ohio Government please visit David and Jill Rodrigues to review the current precautions concerning COVID19 and what this means specifically for their family?

The Rodrigues Family of Wooster, Ohio including twelve of their children have published that the COVID19 mitigation measures issued by Pennsylvania on March 16, 2020 and subsequent orders at State and National levels allow them a religious exemption which did not impede their planned travel or activities. This included documentation of close physical contact with individuals of all ages in both small and large church gatherings in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

After traveling to Chambersburg, PA, they published evidence of close physical contact citizens there at some point during March 18 - 24, 2020. This included door-to-door visits with strangers near the New Testament Baptist Church of Chambersburg. They mention the name of their 15-year-old son, so it is likely that at least some of their children participated in community visitation in the homes of private citizens there.

The family explains online that they are more concerned with the eternal fate of strangers than they are for their physical wellbeing or any public health threat. Their rationale includes their faith that their own deaths would only result in them going to heaven. The group also teaches the importance of civil disobedience when God's Law overrides Civil Law, allowing them license to act in accordance to what they understand as God's highest will.

Their evangelical religious sect and its leaders embrace a book called A More Excellent Way: Be in Healthby author Henry Wright which attributes physical disease to a traceable, root spiritual cause. As a result, I am deeply concerned that the family will continue to travel, put the health of their children at risk, and thus pose an ongoing, serious health risk to an inestimable number of people.